What Age Is Best To Teach Phonics?

One thing to consider is that your toddler's interest in letters may be nothing more than an eagerness to learn the names of things.

Before teaching phonics, it's important that your toddler has gone through the language explosion stage and is now talking in short sentences.

The reason I suggest this is because written language is based on spoken language.

When you start teaching phonics, you'll invite your toddler to pay attention to the phonemes in words you say in addition to teaching new words to build vocabulary.

Look for evidence that your toddler not only names an object, but is also interested in beginning sounds activities.

Beginning sounds activities develop phonemic awareness, and this pre-reading skill makes learning phonics easier for children.

It doesn't make sense to help toddlers develop phonemic awareness if they are still learning to talk and use words in sentences.

Learning phonics involves activities that ask you to recall and say the sound when you see a letter and/or find the letter that represents a sound you hear.

To participate in beginning sounds activites (the first step to teach phonics), it will be helpful if your toddler is at least willing to attempt to imitate you when you say a speech sound.

There are speech sound development charts that you can look at to see what's realistic for your toddler.

Most toddlers have developed the speech sounds for h, p, n, d, b, w, and m by the time they turn 2 years old.

To learn phonics, your toddler will need to remember letter-sound correspondences.

When you show a letter, your toddler will say the sound. Or, when you say a sound, your toddler will bring you the letter.

Look for evidence that your toddler's memory is developing.

Does your toddler remember and say the names of some shapes, colors and animals?

That's a good sign that your toddler's memory has developed enough to begin learning letter sounds!

Some toddlers can memorize letter sounds using flashcards similar to the way that they memorize the names of toy animals.

But those same toddlers probably haven't yet developed the abstract thinking required to understand that words are make up of speech sounds in a row.

It might be helpful to think about how learning what "red" or "seven" means is similar to learning that letters are written symbols that represent speech sounds. Colors, numbers and the alphabet are asbtract concepts.

To help your toddler develop abstract thinking, you can offer object-to-picture matching activities with different types of things in a category, such as fruits and vegetables.

Is it easy for your toddler to match apples, oranges, kiwis and bananas with similar (but not identical) pictures of those fruits using Montessori 3 part cards?

That's another good sign that your toddler is developing the abstract thinking that's required for learning phonics at home.

Most 3 year olds are developmentally ready to begin learning phonics. When children are around 3 years old, they begin to develop the capacity to think about thinking.

If you're teaching phonics step by step, you'll start with drawing attention to the speech sounds in words you say.

The purpose is to help your 3 year old child develop phonemic awareness and understand that words are made up of sounds in row.

This step lays the foundation for letter-sound correspondence activities.

Some children will need to play beginning sounds games for several months before moving on to learning letter sounds.

Phonics for 4 year olds typically looks like learning all of the a-z letter sounds, plus some letter combinations that represent one phoneme. Common digraphs include ai, ee, ie, sh and ch.

Learning phonics is tricky because there are more phonemes in the English language than there are letters of the alphabet.

It's around 4 years old when children know enough phonics to being using their existing knowledge to develop encoding skills.

Four year old children can think of a word they want to write, figure out what sounds they hear when they say the word, find the letters for each sound, and then put those sounds in a row to build the word.

Most 4 year olds are still developing the hand and arm muscles to hold a pencil. So it's best if you introduce a Montessori moveable alphabet for word building activities.

Often 4 year old children will realize that they can actually read the words that they have written or built with a Montessori moveable alphabet.

Children around 5 year old are typically using their phonics knowledge to decode written words.

Reading with phonics means pulling apart a written word to figure out which sound each letter represents. Then you blend the sounds together to say it out loud to hear the word and understand its meaning.

Through the process of writing and reading, 5 year olds will learn more letter combinations that represent a single phoneme. They also learn different ways to spell a phoneme depending on the word it's in.

With practice decoding words, phrases and sentences, 5 year olds will begin to read more fluently and will be ready for decodable books for emergent readers.

The best age to start teaching phonics at home is usually between 3 to 4 years old.

Readiness for learning phonics depends on more than just your child's age.

Consider your child's spoken language skills, memory development, capacity for abstract thinking and phonemic awareness.

What if your 3 year old isn't showing an obvious interest in learning phonics?

We know from the science of reading that learning to read isn't hardwired in the brain. Around 90% of the brain is developed by the time children are 5 years old, so it's best to be proactive.

Being proactive with teaching phonics doesn't mean being pushy! You can offer fun, hand-on activities to develop pre-reading skills in a low key way.

You'll want to meet your child where they're at in the process of learning to read.

When you know the milestones along the journey to reading with phonics, you can go at your child's own pace and know that they're on track with learning to read.

Related Article: How To Teach Phonics At Home Step By Step